Chapter 2 The stranger beneath the streetlight

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Chapter One: The Stranger Beneath the Streetlight

The city of Emberfall breathed in shadows.

Beneath the velvet hush of midnight rain, the streetlights glowed a sickly gold, flickering like dying embers. Fog rolled through the alleys in slow, serpentine waves, cloaking everything in mystery. Somewhere between reality and ruin, Duncan Vale walked alone.

He didn't mind the rain. The cold had long since stopped touching him.

His black coat clung to him like smoke, tailored sharp and severe, just like the expression on his face. Duncan moved with the practiced stillness of a man used to watching everything fall apart. And yet, something had drawn him out tonight-something more than instinct.

A letter. A mark. A memory.

He paused beneath a trembling streetlight on West Hallow Lane, the last place his cursed dreams kept dragging him back to. In his gloved hand, the letter remained unopened, damp at the edges. The seal-broken crescent moon etched in silver ink-was unmistakable. The symbol of the woman who had cursed him.

But she was dead. Had been for years.

A wind whispered past him, carrying the faint scent of jasmine and smoke. He turned. No footsteps. No echo.

And then-she appeared.

From the fog stepped a woman, barefoot on wet stone, her cloak clinging to her body like it was stitched from shadows. Her presence felt unreal, like a dream half-remembered.

Her voice was calm. Low. Unshaken.

> "You shouldn't have come here, Duncan Vale."

His breath caught, but he didn't show it. "And yet here I am."

She tilted her head slightly, studying him. Her eyes-striking gold with flecks of crimson-glowed faintly, like dying coals.

> "The curse is shifting," she said. "That's why you're restless."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've seen it before," she replied softly. "Because I was there-before the fire, before the deal, before your soul was bound."

Duncan narrowed his eyes. "You talk like you know me."

She stepped closer, rain slipping over her skin like it feared to touch her. "I do."

For a moment, silence hung between them-thick with memory, heavy with magic.

"What's your name?" Duncan asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"Arielle."

The name struck something in him-something half-buried.

She reached into her cloak and pulled out a stone pendant, etched with the same broken crescent moon. "You're not the only one who was cursed that night."

Duncan's heartbeat quickened, his guarded mask cracking just